‘The Blt’ Faces Another, Longer Prison Term Stevens County Prosecutor Plans To Recommend The Maximum Standard Sentence

A man who was dubbed “the BLT” by fellow inmates after helping assault another man with bacon is likely headed back to jail.

Randy E. Thomas, 38, faces up to 3-1/2 years in prison on his new conviction for participating in a murder last October.

Another accomplice, Donald L. Edmondson, 30, recently joined Thomas in pleading guilty to first-degree rendering criminal assistance in the murder of Blue Creek resident David Trail.

Unlike Thomas, Edmondson has no criminal record and may get off with a little more than a year in prison when the two are sentenced in June.

Stevens County Prosecutor Jerry Wetle agreed to recommend a 14-month sentence for Edmondson. Wetle said he plans to recommend the maximum standard sentence, which will be at least 3-1/2 years, for Thomas.

Thomas had just gotten out of jail on his bacon conviction when he and three other men allegedly burst into Trail’s mobile home and one of them shot Trail to death. Since his release, Thomas had been staying in the dilapidated trailer where Trail was living with Thomas’ ex-wife and Thomas’ children.

No one died in Thomas’ previous crime, in which he and another man left a battered and bleeding associate tied up in the woods near Loon Lake with strips of bacon around him to attract wild animals. Thomas got off with a year in jail by pleading guilty to reduced charges of possessing methamphetamine and taking a car without permission.

Then, as now in the murder case, Thomas agreed to testify against a co-defendant who allegedly was more responsible for the crime.

Thomas and Edmondson both are to testify against Scott A. Lindsey, 32, who allegedly shot Trail repeatedly with a .22-caliber revolver. They also are to testify against Lindsey’s girlfriend, Tina Sokoll, 25, if she is charged in Trail’s death.

Wetle said he has not yet decided whether to charge Sokoll with first-degree rendering criminal assistance for allegedly hiding the murder weapon.

Authorities didn’t discover Trail’s death until they were tipped off in February by a man who said Lindsey and Edward P. Becker, 25, of Addy, told him about the murder.

Becker is scheduled for trial June 1 on a charge of first-degree rendering criminal assistance in Trail’s death. Lindsey’s murder trial also is scheduled for June 1, but some rescheduling is likely.

The prosecutor said in court documents that Lindsey, Thomas, Edmondson and Becker decided to give Trail “some of his own medicine” after Trail assaulted his live-in girlfriend, Angie Garrett, who is Thomas’ ex-wife. Thomas and Edmondson said Garrett complained to Sokoll that she was hospitalized after Trail hit her over the head with a bong - a water pipe used to smoke drugs.

Sokoll told Lindsey, who summoned the other defendants to his trailer at Addy. The men armed themselves with a .22-caliber revolver, a baseball bat, an ax handle, a metal bar and a stick of wood and proceeded to Trail’s home at nearby Blue Creek, Wetle said.

The defendants broke into the trailer, where Lindsey allegedly found Trail in a bedroom and shot him twice. Thomas, Edmondson and Becker ran outside, but soon returned to find Trail in the kitchen pleading for his life. Lindsey had emptied the nine-shot revolver into Trail and reloaded while Trail begged, the prosecutor stated.

At some point during the assault, Wetle said, all of the defendants beat Trail. Then a plastic bag was tied over the victim’s head and Lindsey shot him in the head, killing him. An autopsy showed Trail was shot four times in the head and five or six times in the body.

Edmondson admitted helping bury Trail in a shallow grave while Thomas cleaned up the trailer.